Thoughts on Annual Campaign Kickoffs

Make the ask consistent with what they gave to last year. If a donor gave from an email campaign in November, then solicit her in November using email first. It’s a punishment to ask someone to renew in a way that’s convenient to you.

1. Acknowledge former gifts. “Thank you for your gift last year of…” makes it clear that you know more than the prospect’s name.
2. I get irked when someone calls me by my first name up front and that may be my Baby Boomer generation. But any solicitation starting with “Dear Friend” gets recycled. Over the past few years, a charity that I once gave $500 to wrote me with, “Dear NULL,” which is why the charity never saw a dollar from me again.
3. When we take classes on writing appeals, we learn to talk to the prospect about himself first. So many solicitations begin with, “Like you, I would like to give all of my money to our mutual charity of interest.” Tell me a story about the success of the program or ask the appeal writer to share why she herself is giving. Or use your automated toolkit to add a sentence about the prospect’s involvement, like, “It was great to see that you came for Arbor Day this year.”
4. Leave the fear tactics, threats, and how-could-you-not nonsense to the politicians. Just ask my text inbox.
5. Message according to messaging that works. You can identify key words and phrases using sentiment analysis or be brave and do A/B testing. But don’t repeat the same heart string plucking sentences over and over every year. The people that you are communicating with have memories.
6. Consider using a small group of 12-year-old girls as your test group. I’m serious. They will find any laughable portion of what you are putting out there. This is a corollary to the rule, don’t let a committee write your appeal.
7. Be careful with language. In the new era where all people matter, pronouns can not be assumed, and cliches that we thought were innocent turn out to have originated during slavery, we can not be careless or patronizing, even if we are working for a conservative religious organization.

​Here are some ideas for accomplishing some of my suggestions.

Before the season (or your next appeal) starts, smart code prospects according to how they gave last year. If they gave to direct mail, code them with this year’s direct mail appeal. Stagger your direct mail, even if it means more work. Send solicitations about 30 days before the same date as their gift last year – my analysis for several organizations showed that direct mail gets returns for 30 to 60 days from the mailing date.

Also consider asking for the fund that they gave to last year. Asking someone who gave to cafeteria chairs last year to give to the unrestricted fund this year can feel manipulative. If someone wants to fund cafeteria chairs, then he gets to – and your offices get the old chairs if need be.
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Smart coding is possible in all of the databases that I’ve used. You can assign an appeal code to renewals that match their giving last year, and then assign your regular appeal codes to everyone else. 

There have been a couple of firms building toolkits for nonprofits to customize communication. However, even Microsoft Word merge can handle if/then statements that would populate bits of a correspondence (yes, even email or text). The more personalized you can be, the more you make it obvious that you see the person you are soliciting. All of the suggestions that I list below can be smart coded.
Personalization can include:

1. Name and preferred salutation – spend time to update these. I don’t like getting a letter with my name crossed out and my nickname written in pen. I think of it as ill prepared.
2. Escalating language based on last gift amount. For instance, “Thank you for your last year’s gift of “ for gifts under $100, “…your thoughtful gift last year of…” for $100 or more, “…your generous gift of…” for $1,000 or more, etc. You can set up the rule in your database or in your word processor.
3. Mention of the last event attendance or participation. This step would be tricky if your database is not well maintained with this data, but imagine how special it would feel to your audience.
4. For new donors, a comment on how they arrived in your database helps cement the relationship. “When you participated in our 2021 duck race, you joined over 1,000 people who love to duck race every year…”

There are lots of ways to find which expressions sing to your prospect pool. We teach a course on sentiment analysis, for instance. However, ask people when you are at events with them why they give. Their words are the best words for your appeals.

My experience with most organizations is that the ones who focus on sharing the mission get better response than the ones who focus on the organization’s need.
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My quip about the 12-year-old girls is just a way to be clear that you need to pretest your appeals. I have rescued letters which were too heavy for one stamp, had one typo (yes, we did have to buy another 5 or 6 boxes of letterhead), or had a trustee’s name misspelled. It happens. Rushing makes it worse. Extracting the data from your database and shipping it to the printer or mailing service without reviewing it is even worse than that. 

​Annual giving is the act of asking a person or household to support you this year. It is an intimate act and we compete with the sophisticated systems of Amazon and Netflix to prove that we see the people that we are appealing to. The good news is that we have the technology to be as intimate if we plan well and spend the time to set it up. Ask me how I know – oh, wait. I already told you about my 27% a year increase when I ran an annual giving program.